Chapter 434: A King’s Secret
Richard swallowed hard, his throat dry. "Yes, my King."
"I need you to go down to the docks. Find the main quartermaster on my flagship." Ragnar ordered, walking over to his armor resting on a wooden stand.
"The quartermaster?" Richard asked, quickly pulling a small piece of parchment and a charcoal stick from his coat pocket. "What supplies do we need? More black powder? Extra rations for the march?"
Ragnar strapped the leather over his broad chest and pulled the iron buckles tight.
"No," Ragnar grunted. "Tell him to get down the secret."
Richard paused.
"The secret?" Richard blinked, confused. "What exactly is that, my King? How heavy is it? Do I need to order the Norwegian dockworkers to clear a path, or bring heavy draft horses?"
"You don’t need to know what it is." Ragnar chuckled, grabbing a fur cloak and throwing it over his armored shoulders. "Just go to the ship and say those words to the quartermaster. He will know exactly what to do. Now go!"
Richard didn’t dare ask a fourth question tonight. He quickly bowed his head, turned on his heel, and sprinted out of the room.
...
Down in the plains just outside the towering wooden palisades of the city, the Iron Kingdom’s army was actively assembling. The torchlight illuminated a scene that would make any southern emperor completely shit his expensive silk pants.
Twelve thousand heavily armored soldiers were standing in straight, unmoving lines in the freezing mud.
Each tactical line consisted of exactly 1,500 men.
They wore matching dark steel breastplates and carried the deadly repeating rifles resting uniformly against their right shoulders. But the men weren’t the most terrifying part of the formation.
Integrated directly into each line of 1,500 men were a hundred lightweight steel cannons.
Unlike the massive, heavy bronze pigs that Lord Lothair was currently trying to drag through the forest marsh, these cannons were cast from high-quality City Titan steel. They were small, incredibly durable, and mounted on light wooden push-carts. The soldiers themselves were actively moving them, pushing the iron-rimmed wheels through the dirt with absolute ease. They didn’t need massive draft horses to haul their basic artillery; the infantry and the cannons completely moved as one single, highly lethal unit.
And positioned exactly in the dead center of each massive line was a heavy, horse-drawn wooden cart carrying something entirely unnatural.
It was a Gatling gun. A terrifying, multi-barreled mechanical monstrosity entirely capable of spitting hundreds of lead bullets in a single minute. The brass cranks gleamed wickedly in the torchlight, completely ready to turn any charging Frankish cavalry into a bloody, unrecognizable mist.
"Keep those cannon carts aligned with the infantry!" Domnall the Scot roared, his thick highland accent booming across the muddy field. He rode a massive, shaggy warhorse up and down the front line, his heavy claymore resting entirely across his saddle. "If you push too far forward, you will block our own rifle fire, you stupid bastards! Dress the line!"
"Check your powder flasks!" Eadberht shouted from the right flank, his polished Anglo-Saxon scale armor catching the light of a nearby bonfire. "Keep the damp sea air entirely out of your firing pans! If your rifle jams when the Franks charge, you will be dead before you can even draw your knife!"
Wulfhere was aggressively barking similar orders on the left flank, actively adjusting the angle of a Gatling gun cart so it had a perfect, sweeping arc of the valley ahead.
However, the sight of these three foreign marshals absolutely controlling a massive army of northern warriors raised a lot of quiet, angry whispers among the local Norwegian Jarls who had come to watch from the city walls.
Why had Ragnar handed the absolute power of his grand army to a Scotsman and two lords from York?
Though many believed it was just another unpredictable whim of the mad Iron King, the actual truth was deeply rooted in Ragnar’s bloody past.
Ragnar hadn’t chosen these men. His father, the old chieftain Ulf, had chosen them.
Years ago, before the massive steam trains and the ironclads, Ulf had sailed to the muddy shores of Britain for a standard raid. But instead of just burning villages, Ulf spent his time watching the local battles. He had seen Domnall hold a ruined, muddy hill against a massive rival clan, using nothing but raw, stubborn tactical brilliance and a hundred starving men. He had seen Eadberht and Wulfhere coordinate a flawless ambush in the dense forests of York, maintaining terrifying discipline while their enemies entirely panicked and broke formation.
Before the old man died, Ulf had pulled Ragnar aside.
Our people fight for glory, my son, Ulf had coughed, blood staining his beard. A Viking Jarl wants to charge forward, swing his axe, and have a beautiful song sung about his brave death. That is completely useless if you want to conquer the world. Go hire the highlander and the men from York.
And Ulf was right. The three marshals didn’t care about personal glory or charging blindly into the enemy lines. They cared about firing angles, supply logistics, and keeping the artillery protected. They were the exact, cold-blooded tactical minds Ragnar needed to manage his complex weapons.
"Marshal Domnall!" a young rifleman called out, entirely shivering in the freezing wind as he gripped the wooden handle of his cannon cart. "The scouts report that the Frankish vanguard is already stirring in the forest! They are trying to light torches!"
"Let them stir," Domnall grinned fiercely, spitting a wad of chewed tobacco into the freezing mud. "By the time they push their heavy bronze garbage out of the trees, we will have eight hundred steel cannons perfectly aimed at their miserable faces."
Eadberht rode his horse over to the Scot, his face completely serious. "Do you think Sigurd and his river fleet are in position yet? If we completely pin Lothair in the valley, Sigurd needs to strike their rear instantly."
"Sigurd is a highly capable killer," Wulfhere chimed in, trotting his horse over to join his fellow marshals in the center of the muddy field. "He will hit them exactly when the sun breaks the horizon. Lothair is going to wake up completely surrounded by fire."
The three marshals nodded in mutual, highly professional agreement. The trap was entirely set. The twelve thousand men were perfectly locked into their formations. The devastating Gatling guns were fully loaded, and the eight hundred push-cannons had their fuses primed.
It was going to be an absolute, unmitigated slaughter.
Suddenly, a loud, frantic commotion entirely broke out near the heavy wooden gates of the port city behind them.
"Make way! Move your fucking asses, clear the path!" a group of Norwegian dockworkers screamed at the top of their lungs, aggressively shoving a few confused riflemen out of the dirt road.
Domnall frowned deeply, turning his massive shaggy horse around to see what was completely disrupting his perfect battle lines.
Riding just ahead of the commotion was Richard, the slim southern tactician. He looked entirely out of breath, his face completely pale as he frantically waved his hands to part the sea of armored soldiers.
But it wasn’t Richard that made the three veteran marshals freeze in their saddles.
Rolling slowly and heavily out of the city gates, completely shaking the frozen mud beneath it, was a massive, highly reinforced wooden carriage. It was so incredibly heavy that it required twelve massive draft horses to pull it, their thick muscles straining violently against the thick leather harnesses.
The object resting entirely on the massive carriage was covered by a giant, thick black canvas tarp, tied down securely with thick iron chains.
Even entirely hidden beneath the canvas, the sheer, absolutely terrifying silhouette of the weapon was breathtaking. It was long, incredibly thick, and looked like a sleeping iron dragon completely resting in the shadows.
"Easy now!" the quartermaster from the flagship roared, walking alongside the carriage with a long whip. "If you snap the axle in this mud, King Ragnar will personally use your guts for bowstrings! Keep it steady!"
The twelve thousand soldiers went silent... even the wind seemed to hold its breath as the hidden beast rolled slowly toward the front of the army lines.
"By all the heavens..." Eadberht whispered, his eyes wide as he stared at the black canvas. "What in the is that?"
Wulfhere swallowed hard. "I have no idea. But the ground is shaking just from its weight."
Domnall the Scot urged his warhorse forward, stopping in front of Richard as the panting tactician finally reached the command group.
The highlander looked stunned, his fierce bravado vanishing for a split second.